The New Jersey Legislature is advancing a statute that would enable individuals to enter into enforceable agreements for surrogate parenthood via gestational carriers. The New Jersey Gestational Carrier Agreement Act (S-482, A-1704) awaits only final legislative approval and the signature of Gov. Phil Murphy to become law.

In gestational surrogacy, a woman agrees to be implanted with a fertilized egg that is not hers, and to carry the fetus to term. The fetus is conceived in vitro, using egg and sperm from donors who are unrelated to the woman. The act requires such agreements to be in writing; additionally, the carrier must be over age 21 and have already borne at least one child of her own; her spouse or partner must consent in writing, and the intended parents must provide financial and medical support to the woman throughout her pregnancy and delivery. All parties must also undergo psychological evaluation and be represented by independent counsel. The woman carrying the fetus must surrender custody of the baby to the intended parents immediately upon birth. The act specifies that during the pregnancy, the intended parents must initiate a proceeding for an order of parentage. After the birth, the state will issue a birth certificate listing only the intended parents as the legal parents. Records relating to the agreement will remain confidential, but the child may petition for access when he or she turns 18.

With more people facing fertility issues and couples increasingly seeking alternative routes to have children, there is a growing number of UK families created through surrogacy.

In the last three years, the number of children being born through surrogacy has almost tripled according to figures from the Ministry of Justice Family Court.

Surrogacy is no longer a taboo – along with adoption it has become an accepted alternative to traditional child birth. It has even recently featured in the Archers on Radio 4 and has been put into the headlines by Kim Kardashian and Kanye West who have recently used a surrogate to have their baby, Chicago.

On Jan. 25, 2018, the Appellate Division, Third Department, issued a significant decision in Matter of Christopher YY v. Jessica ZZ, 2018 NY Slip Op 00495. Underlying the court’s determination is the conundrum which it describes as follows: “Application of existing case law involving different-gender spouses, addressing whether the presumption [of legitimacy] has been rebutted, to a child born to a same-gender married couple is inherently problematic, as it is not currently scientifically possible for same-gender couples to produce a child that is biologically ‘the product of the marriage’ [citations omitted].”

Andrew Powell, barrister of 4 Paper Buildings, considers recent developments relating to surrogacy law, including new guidance, as well as the latest cases concerning administrative errors and the HFEA.

H (A Child: Surrogacy Breakdown) [2017] EWCA Civ 1798 (17 November 2017)
Like so many of the reported surrogacy cases in this jurisdiction, in H (A child: Surrogacy breakdown) [2017] EWCA Civ 1798 the court – on this occasion, the Court of Appeal – highlights once more some of the complexities of surrogacy in the absence of any form of regulation.

The facts of this case can be summarised as follows. A and B were a male same-sex couple who entered into a surrogacy agreement with C and D who were a heterosexual married couple. A’s sperm and a donor egg resulted in C’s pregnancy with H. The parties’ relationship broke down subsequently and communication between them ceased. After the birth, the solicitors representing C and D wrote to A and B to inform them that they no longer wished to follow the terms of the agreement and would not provide their consent to the making of a parental order (one of the essential ingredients under s54 of the HFEA 2008).

GENEVA (6 March 2018) – Children face becoming commodities as surrogacy arrangements become more prevalent, and urgent action is needed to protect their rights, the UN Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children has warned.

“There is no right to have a child under international law,” said Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, who presented a report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva. “Children are not goods or services that the State can guarantee or provide. They are human beings with rights.

The UK’s Department for Health and Social Care has released new guidelines advising that children born via surrogacy be told of their origins.

The guidelines, released last Wednesday, are intended to “ensure LGBTQ+ individuals are given equal care, and that all surrogates and intended parents are treated with due dignity and respect”. The document states:

Research suggests that openness, confidence and transparency about a child’s origins from an early age (pre-school) is the best way to talk to children about their identity and origins. Your fertility counsellor should have given you the opportunity to explore how you feel about telling a child about their origins, and fertility counsellors would be happy to help you reach a decision about this at any time, as your thoughts and feelings about if, when and how to do this may change over time.

LGBT people have gradually stepped out from shadows over the last 50 years, not only transforming our own lives, but those of our families and communities. A generation or two ago, the children we raised were born of previous heterosexual relationships. This began to change in the 1970s and ‘80s, aided by helpful court rulings that reflected cultural sea change in attitudes toward gay people in general. In 1997, New Jersey became the first state to allow same-sex couples to adopt jointly.

Adoption, artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization and surrogacy are now viable avenues available for LGBT individuals and couples. Ultimately, the choice of how to build your family (adoption vs. fertility treatment) is a personal decision based on many factors. Those who seek help from assisted reproductive technologies want to have children with whom they share a genetic connection. What is this path like?

Government guidance has been issued for couples considering surrogacy in England and Wales, for the first time.

Two sets of guidelines have been released, one for surrogates and intended parents, and the other for healthcare professionals working with them.

Couples planning to enter into an agreement with a surrogate are recommended to use written agreements covering conception, expenses and any planned relationship between the surrogate and the child. They are also encouraged to use established surrogacy organisations in the UK to find a surrogate, rather than travelling abroad to clinics or using informal arrangements.

Actress Sunny Leone on Monday surprised everyone by announcing the birth of her sons Noah and Asher via surrogacy.

She had adopted a girl, Nisha, in 2017.

Leone took to Twitter to post a picture of herself along with husband Daniel Weber and their three children.

Leone captioned it: “God’s plan! June 21st, 2017 was the day Daniel and I found out that we might possibly be having three children within a short amount of time. We planned and tried to have a family and after so many years [our] family is now complete with Asher Singh Weber, Noah Singh Weber and Nisha Kaur Weber.”

Once upon a time, it was relatively easy to determine parentage, particularly for women: the one who gave birth was the mother of the child, and the mother’s husband was the legally presumed father.

However, with the advent of assisted reproductive technologies, mere biology – whether genetic or gestational – no longer adequately characterizes a parent-child relationship. What evolved is a trifurcated classification of parentage:

Priceless: Kristy and Craig Darken with baby Henry, born via a surrogate. Kristy described the process as akin to having all of the ingredients to make a cake, but baking it in someone else’s oven. Picture: Kelsey Mlekus Photography

BY the time Kristy and Craig Darken found out they were going to be parents, they had almost given up all hope of holding a child of their own in their arms.

It had been close to eight years of highs and lows, of hope and of devastation, as the Elermore Vale couple trod the testing track of having a baby via a surrogate.

But then, countless counselling sessions, IVF, two surrogates and 10 embryos later, a tearful late night phone call came from Kristy’s sister, Rebecca.

“She was crying her eyes out,” Kristy said.

“I thought she was crying because she knew it was our last try. I thought she was devastated. Then finally, she said, ‘I’m pregnant. It worked’.

Making the decision to use donor eggs in IVF is often not easy. If you’ve had failed IVF cycles using your own eggs or been told you have insufficient ovarian reserve for IVF, you and your partner may need time to grieve before moving on to donor eggs. Once you are ready, however, donor eggs are a kind of miracle. Eggs from young, healthy donors make it possible for women even of advanced maternal age to get pregnant and have a healthy baby at about the same IVF success rates as younger women, as high as 50 percent or more. Those celebrities having babies well after age 40 are most likely using donor eggs. When you and your partner are ready, these six factors can help you select an egg donor who’s right for you.

The high cost of assisted reproductive treatment in North America is forcing many US citizens to look to other countries for high-quality medical care at a lower cost.

Fertty International. A modern clinic, for new models of the family (PRNewsfoto/Fertty International)

In 2016, nearly 1.4 million Americans travelled outside the U.S. in search of medical treatment, compared to 750,000 in 2008. Currently, medical tourism, or cross border reproductive care as the media have labelled it, is rising by 25% per year.

The primary reasons for these trips, according to a study conducted by the Task Force on Ethics and Law from the ESHRE, and published in the scientific journal Human Reproduction (Shenfield et al. 2010), is the difficulty in accessing certain treatments due to legal restrictions, long waiting lists, and thirdly, the search for high-quality reproductive treatment.

The main countries hosting these medical tourists in Europe are Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Switzerland, Slovenia and Spain. The fact that the latter has the most permissive legislation in terms of assisted reproduction, together with the European regulations on mobilisation of biological samples, and high medical and technical quality make Spain the top destination. It is also the country with the most egg donations.

The Central Administrative Tribunal has come to the aid of a woman, working in the Ministry of Law & Justice, who was denied maternity leave as she had begotten her children through surrogacy.

The Tribunal directed the Ministry to sanction 180 days of maternity leave to the woman citing three high court’s verdicts which have held that the commissioning mother is also entitled for grant of maternity leave.

The woman is working as a Personal Assistant in the Legislative Department, Official Language Wing of Ministry of Law & Justice. As she was unable to conceive due to medical issues, she entered into Gestational Surrogacy Agreement with another woman.

Fertility services are treatments, which aid in treating infertility in patients. In vitro fertilization (IVF), surrogacy, artificial insemination, and others are different forms of infertility services, which assists couples with infertility problems, single mothers, and the LGBT community to procreate. The global fertility services market was valued at $16,761 million in 2016, and is estimated to reach at $30,964 million by 2023, registering a CAGR of 9.3% from 2017 to 2023.

More than 3,000 women travel abroad for cheap assisted human reproduction treatments every year, a leading fertility doctor has estimated.

Dr John Kennedy, medical director of Virtus Health, the largest provider of fertility services in Ireland, said the figure included those who travelled to get conventional IVF treatments, egg donation and surrogacy services.

He said it was difficult to get exact figures because some women travelled without informing their fertility doctors, but that 3,000 was a reasonable estimate. The average cost of a cycle of IVF in Ireland is between €5,000 and €7,000, but can cost less than €3,000 in some eastern European countries. Dr Kennedy said these countries were always going to be cheaper, but there could be differences in quality of care.

Couples who are undergoing fertility treatment in some clinics are being “financially exploited” and having additional investigations that are not necessary, the Oireachtas health committee was told yesterday.

Dr John Waterstone of the Irish Fertility Society said the proposed Government legislation on assisted reproduction should outlaw this.

He said people who are trying to have a baby can end up spending thousands of euro more on these procedures, which will not improve their chances of success.

He was appearing with other fertility experts before the committee to discuss the proposed legislation.